For whom the bells toll?
by Elfaki
Summary: There are always bells. And he hears them, alone or with her, he listens to them. those beautiful, wonderful funereal bells. Oneshot. mainly inspired by "The bells" of Edgar Allan Poe.


A new one-shot. It was written in one night! So fast. I hadn't plant for this, I simply started and it came to this. Inspired by the poems "The Bells" and "A Dream within a Dream" by E.A. Poe and "For whom the bell tolls?" by Metallica. I also left some things untold purposely.

**Warnings:** before you say Itachi is out of character he is based on the revelations of the latest chapters of the manga so keep that in mind. It is also alternative universe-ish.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the song, the poems or the manga/anime. They all belong to their rightful owners.

**R&R**

**For whom the bells toll?**

The profound and grave sound of bells was heard through all of Konoha; Bells who were singing a requiem to accompany a man at his last journey. His ears caught the lonely heavy sound of the bells. Funeral bells monotonously echoed through the village, as they moaned of death in their steady tolling.

"Do you hear them?" he asked from his place in the shadows. He shifted his eyes towards the window were outside the sky was too grey and inside the room was too dark.

"Yes" she answered from her hiding corner. She was still too far from him and his eyes couldn't see her. His eyes that used to see everything have failed him.

"Do you know for whom they toll?" he asked again.

"Yes." She replied and her voice was a little bit slower than before.

"He was your…"

"Friend. Yes, he was."

And for the first time she stepped away from her place and he could see her. She wore black attire, perfectly suited for a funeral. The sound of her feet was quite unnerving accompanied by the funereal sound of the bells.

"I was going to say husband. Aren't you supposed to be at his funeral?" he asked intrigued.

"Yes." She replied with a steady voice. Her hands were holding a white flower securely across her chest.

"Is that for him?"

"Yes."

"Shouldn't you be placing it on his grave then?"

"Yes." She said after a drawled pause.

"Well then, leave."

"I suppose I should go." She admitted reluctantly and left him.

His mind wasn't on her exactly, but he somehow wanted to know why she came to visit him. She didn't say her reason for visiting. She simply stood there, watching him. When the bells begun to ring loudly he asked her and all her answers were leading nowhere.

She was walking away from him and he could hear the clicking sound of her heals as they hit the cemented ground. It was like her rhythm of walking had matched the rhythm of the bells, and those two sounds combined were quite macabre. He liked that sound; a sound of death, prelude to the decay of the body. What a soothing sound. Others would call him mad and insane. He smiled with that devilish smile he possessed, and thought of himself as another mad genius. Most would agree with him.

He knew all too well that those bells will never sound for him. Criminals do not get to be buried ceremoniously. The fright of the bells would never be spread at his funeral. Maybe his name would do the job. Maybe not. He didn't know. He simply waited.

She came a few days later. She was still dressed in black, but this time her clothes were simple. They were a token of her grief. She would always be dressed in black from that day forward. He knew that just by looking at that sad, sad little face of hers. He caused that face. That made him awfully proud. He was affecting her. He still had strength in him.

That day she did not spoke a word. She came. She sat outside of the iron bars and watched him stoically. And then she left. But before she left the room entirely, she gave him a look that spoke volumes. Her hatred was so evident that left him smiling for days. And when she came back that sick, sick little smile was still there.

Bells, bells, bells; they were echoing again. Different bells. Happy bells. He disliked those bells. They were so loud and fast and cheerful, as they chanted in a frenzy of happiness. His memory of wonderfully grave bells was destroyed. His mind was thinking of their tolling. It was not from a wedding, he was sure. It was something else. But what?

He spent hours thinking, coming with a few answers, some that would never be true. The answer came the next day along with her arrival. She informed of his last comrade being killed in action.

Those detested happy bells were indicating the dawning of a new era; an era of peace and freedom, with no more blood, with no more death. What a boring world that would be. He decided he preferred the wonderful solitude of his shell. It was much better. He had already lost his heart; maybe his mind would be next. He did not know, and he somehow, despite his character, he liked that lack of knowledge.

She came again, and again, and again. He knew why. He always knew why. She wanted answers. He had them. She wanted them. Simple as that. But he would never give them.

Answers that would make her cry more, so much more. But that was not his reason of denying her what she wanted.

Why? He had his reasons. Modesty? No. Silent hero complex? Definitely not. Maybe it was the fact he did had a heart after all. Something she didn't have to be aware of. His secret; his little, unbelievable, insane, secret. She wouldn't believe him anyway, so why bother? Why steal her hatred? She would hate him, and no one else. Much better, he came to believe. Her heart was already broken, and her mind far too wretched, he did not wish to make even more damage.

So he sat patiently in his lonely, lonely shell, and watched her silently as she came to visit. And it was in one day, quite different from the rest, for bells were echoing again that she snapped. The soft tranquilizing sound like a lullaby melody was around them, an enchanting little sound. For the first time after their encounter, with bells in the background as well, he spoke.

"Why there are bells again?" simple and small, and just enough to make her smile.

She paused and looked bewildered at him. Her big eyes looked at him innocently and he wondered how such a thing still existed inside her. His innocence had died so long ago, when he was so, so young that he didn't even remember the feeling.

"I don't know."

"Really? That's interesting." He retorted and his stare pierced her in the heart. Today_ he_ would make _her _talk. "Tell me Sakura, why do you come here?"

Silence was her answer and she let her eyes drift at the lonesome window inside his shell.

"If you tell me why… I will tell you _why_."

And she snapped her eyes to look at him, that very few moments ago were sad and almost as they were dead, were now filled with passion and grief and hatred and longing and a million other things. And he enthralled by all those things that he had made himself forget, and he now hated how he had so skillfully taught himself to not feel. And he envied her ability to something that was so natural to her and so far away from him.

She had grabbed the bars with force that made her fingers hurt and she looked at him in the eyes, and he had to bitterly admit that it was the most intense stare he had ever received.

"You want to know why? I will tell you why! Because you killed them all and destroyed the life of your brother and mine and even more people! Because I thought you were a monster! A crazy monster! But when I came to visit you at his funeral and yell at you and tell you how much I hate you and if Tsunade wasn't stopping me I would have killed you in the most brutal and painful way I know, I saw that for a second there was a melancholy look on your goddamned face! And I couldn't! I couldn't! And I want to know why!" she screamed the last part and she let her head to fall on the bars as her firm grip on them relaxed.

"Do you ever regret?" she whispered finally.

He came closer to her and gently, something he thought himself incapable of, took her hands with his. He leaned his head as well, a few inches above hers and closed his eyes as his mind drifted back to memories, as bitter as dust.

"I was told to do it. That's it." He purposely didn't answer her last question. After that he drifted back to the loneliness and darkness of his shell.

"Thank you Itachi." She said and left.

After that she would come once a week at least. She would sit there and simply watch him. He on the other hand took a habit in reading books. All sorts of books. He borrowed them from the prison's library and read them until he was tired and went to sleep. Sometimes he would read them aloud when she was there.

Her visits were becoming more frequent as more passed. And he noticed small differences every time she came. She begun to smile more, to be calmer, the way she would pay more attention to her appearance, even the way she seemed like she liked those visits.

And soon she noticed that she felt something for him. Was it love or sympathy or just the need to just feel something, she did not know. But she knew it was something and he noticed it too.

"Itachi, can I read you something? It is a poem I found and I like it very much. It is kind of bittersweet but I would really like to read it to you. You might like it." She asked hopefully and her eyes that were bright emerald once again, unlike the first dull green they had when first met in that dark lonely shell, begged him to say yes.

"Go ahead." He simply said.

"Take this kiss upon the brow!  
And, in parting from you now,  
Thus much let me avow-  
You are not wrong, who deem  
That my days have been a dream;  
Yet if hope has flown away  
In a night, or in a day,  
In a vision, or in none,  
Is it therefore the less gone?  
All that we see or seem  
Is but a dream within a dream."

When she finished he thought he was hearing bells again. Soft and sweet and barely audible. Like the small titling sound that music boxes made. And perhaps they were the best bells he had ever listened to. And he closed his eyes in a futile attempt to memorize their sound that was already fading rapidly.

She sighed heavily. She did not wait to hear his reply as she stood and left as different bells than the ones he was hearing moments ago begun to echo again. Its heavy sound told of another funeral. He also liked these bells as well. Dark, dark like him, and so deliciously frightening that he almost craved them. In his twisted mind he felt almost connected to them. He was later informed of the death of one of the elders of the village. He had never been happier.

She stopped coming after that day. He wondered why be he did not dwell on it. He kept on reading and dreaming of bells.

The next time she came was two months after she read him that poem. And the way she was looking at him was a mix of desperation and sadness, so much unwanted sadness. And it was by that he knew it would also be her last visit. Bells, this time melancholy, both bitter and sweet, both happy and sad, were heard and he knew for whom they tolled.

"I am here to inform that you…" she paused and closed her eyes as if she was in pain. And she was, in her heart that is. "I repeat, I am here to inform you that…"

"…these bells are for me." He said in his strong baritone voice and not a single drop of fear was within him. His much welcomed death was so close now. And somehow he felt an enormous amount of pride as he heard their menacing sound. Because there were bells for the likes of him after all.

She came close to him and placed in his palm a small vial that contained a colorless liquid.

"It's an illegal drug, it will ease everything. Drink it now so I can take the vial back with me so no one will know. Please." She added desperately. If he was a different man and his soul weren't as black and tainted as it was, his heart would be broken by the dreadful state she was in. But he was Itachi and he stayed there in complete tranquility. With his free hand he took her arm and brought her closer, a few inches away from him; a distance that was short enough to show that something was actually there, but long enough to reveal the harsh and cruel reality of the situation they were in. He leaned down and kissed her brow, just as she had read him in the poem. And she now knew why all of this was nothing but a dream, a sad, bitter, painful, sorrowful dream of a love, (was it really love? She wondered at that awful moment) that was not meant to be.

He placed the vial in his mouth and secured the containers there and placed the vial back in her hand. She left hurriedly and took one last look back, bidding him with a silent farewell. He spat the liquid on the ground as soon as she departed. Her parting gift was good, but he had his pride. And somehow he felt that he deserved the pain that was about to come. By the crack of dawn he was dead and the last thing he heard was the bell's last frightening throbbing.


End file.
